Is HDCD dead?

yes. wait till you hear SACD of great player like Marantz SA11

I stumbled on to an Atlantic Records 50th anniversary HDCD CD.

I was using my mac mini USB to optical out to the optical inputs of my Denon DVD-5000 using it as a DAC. I can control the output of iTunes volume to the 5000, and since the Denon can encode or has a chip to encode HDCD CD's I noticed there was a switch going on in the player.

As soon as I reached a high enough volume or near full volume, the HDCD mode switched on, indicated on the front panel by a red little light and bam, almost two fold quality, I couldnt believe it!

I thought it was my 5000 going bad or something, but I was floored how I much the quality increased. There was instantly more presence to the music, it was an exprience. And it works, the decoding with a lossless rip of the CD too.

Now, I'm looking for a few favs on HDCD. ITs not dead in Asia I see.

Just rec'd Wayne Wallace's (Trombone-playing/Master arranger/educator/longtime member of West Coast Latin Jazz scene dating back to Azteca and continuing to work with John Santos for decades!)2 latest recordings; 'Devotion' and 'The Reckless Search For Beauty'. Intelligent, smokin', superbly recorded Latin Jazz AND....surprise! Recorded in HDCD!

Modernaire wrote - "As soon as I reached a high enough volume or near full volume, the HDCD mode switched on, indicated on the front panel by a red little light and bam, almost two fold quality, I couldnt believe it!"

Is it possible that what you are hearing is primarily due to the +6dB volume difference that HDCD has over the redbook format?

If you can set up your rig such that you can toggle between the CD layer and HDCD, you might hear that this volume difference is dramatic. It would be interesting to hear from you after you compare the two formats again but this time try and equalize the volume levels.

Enjoy!

my NAD plays hdcd but are there units that can also play the dual layer and sacd formats as well? the dual layer requires 2 lasers i believe and hdcd requires only 1. i want an inexpesive unit that will play all types at full benefit. fwiw, the xrcd24 format is the sweetest thing i have ever heard and plays on any cdp.